Zachary Vanes received his M.A. in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and his B.A. in English Literature and Film Studies from DePauw University. His research interests include nontheatrical film, multi-image slideshows, experimental video, dialogical art, and the professionalization of media production in public education.

His work was recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Film History, and he is the curator of the educational video compilation Video Art and Mass Incarceration (Video Data Bank, 2020).